312 Dr. Faraday's Researches in Electricity. 



character of manner and in the same direction, independent 

 of the different varieties of substance, or their states of solid 

 or liquid, or their specific rotative force (2232.), shows that 

 the magnetic force and the light have a direct relation : but 

 that substances are necessary, and that these act in different 

 degrees, shows that the magnetism and the light act on each 

 other through the intervention of the matter. 



2225. Recognizing or perceiving matter only by its powers, 

 and knowing nothing of any imaginary nucleus, abstract from 

 the idea of these powers, the phsenomena described in this 

 paper much strengthen my inclination to trust in the views I 

 have on a former occasion advanced in reference to its na- 

 ture*. 



2226. It cannot be doubted that the magnetic forces act 

 upon and affect the internal constitution of the diamagnetic, 

 just as freely in the dark as when a ray of light is passing 

 through it ; though the phenomena produced by light seem, 

 as yet, to present the only means of observing this constitu- 

 tion and the change. Further, any such change as this must 

 belong to opake bodies, such as wood, stone, and metal ; for 

 as diamagnetics, there is no distinction between them and 

 those which are transparent. The degree of transparency 

 can at the utmost, in this respect, only make a distinction be- 

 tween the individuals of a class. 



2227. If the magnetic forces had made these bodies mag- 

 nets, we could, by light, have examined a transparent magnet ; 

 and that would have been a great help to our investigation of 

 the forces of matter. But it does not make them magnets 

 (2171.)? ar, d therefore the molecular condition of these bodies, 

 when in the state described, must be specifically distinct from 

 that of magnetized iron, or other such matter, and must be a 

 new magnetic condition; and as the condition is a state of ten- 

 sion (manifested by its instantaneous return to the normal 

 state when the magnetic induction is removed), so ihe force 

 which the matter in this state possesses and its mode of action, 

 must be to us a ?icw magnetic force or mode of action of matter. 



2228. For it is impossible, I think, to observe and see the 

 action of magnetic forces, rising in intensity, upon a piece of 

 heavy glass or a tube of water, without also perceiving that 

 the latter acquire properties which are not only new to the 

 substance, but are also in subjection to very definite and pre- 

 cise laws (2160. 2199.), and are equivalent in proportion to 

 the magnetic forces producing them. 



2229. Perhaps this state is a state of electric tension tending 



* A speculation, &c. Philosophical Magazine, 1844, vol. xxiv. p. 136. 



